Asked if he cared to make any comment upon the speech of the President, Mr. Roosevelt said: 

“I think that China is entitled to draw all the comfort she can from this statement and it would be well for the United States to ponder seriously what the effect upon China has been of managing her foreign affairs during the last fifteen years on the theory thus enunciated.

“If the United States is satisfied with occupying some time in the future the precise international position that China now occupies, then the United States can afford to act on this theory.  But it cannot act on this theory if it desires to retain or regain the position won for it by the men who fought under Washington and by the men who, in the days of Abraham Lincoln, wore the blue under Grant and the gray under Lee.

“I very earnestly hope that we will act promptly.  The proper time for deliberation was prior to sending the message that our Government would hold Germany to a strict accountability if it did the things it has now actually done.  The 150 babies drowned on the Lusitania the hundreds of women drowned with them, scores of these women and children being Americans, and the American ship, the Gulflight, which was torpedoed, offer an eloquent commentary on the actual working of the theory that force is not necessary to assert, and that a policy of blood and iron can with efficacy be met by a policy of milk and water.

“I see it stated in the press dispatches from Washington that Germany now offers to stop the practice on the high seas, committed in violation of the neutral rights that she is pledged to observe, if we will abandon further neutral rights, which by her treaty she has solemnly pledged herself to see that we exercise without molestation.  Such a proposal is not even entitled to an answer.  The manufacturing and shipment of arms and ammunition to any belligerent is moral or immoral according to the use to which the arms and munitions are to be put.  If they are to be used to prevent the redress of the hideous wrongs inflicted on Belgium, then it is immoral to ship them.  If they are to be used for the redress of those wrongs and the restoration of Belgium to her deeply wronged and unoffending people, then it is eminently moral to send them.

“Without twenty-four hours’ delay this country could, and should, take effective action by declaring that in view of Germany’s murderous offenses against the rights of neutrals, all commerce with Germany shall be forthwith forbidden, and all commerce of every kind permitted and encouraged with France, England, and the rest of the civilized world.  This would not be a declaration of war.  It would merely prevent munitions of war being sent to a power which by its conduct has shown willingness to use munitions to slaughter American men and women and children.  I do not believe the assertion of our rights means war, but we will do well to remember there are things worse than war.